The Associated PressGOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney clarified his stance on same-sex adoption last week, calling it a right and later saying it's an issue for states to decide. He used an appearance in Oklahoma to note that he opposes same-sex marriage.

Adoption news from around the world:

CNN predicts difficulties for Mitt Romney after the GOP presidential hopeful called same-sex adoption a "right" before fine-tuning his message. "In my state, individuals of the same sex were able to adopt children.
In my view, that's something that people have a right to do," Romney
said in an interview with Fox News. A Romney adviser later said the candidate views it as a state issue, not one for the federal government to decide. Social conservatives, a key constituency for Romney, may be taken aback by his endorsement of same-sex adoption.

An expert on international adoptions, Peter Selman of Britain's Newcastle University, estimates inter-country adoptions have dropped from 45,000 in 2004 to an estimated 25,000 last year. The Associated Press said reasons iclude tighter regulations to guard against abuses such as child-trafficking, an emphasis in some nations on placing domestically and the wounded global economy.

The drop in inter-country adoptions gets a mention in a touching story in the Philadelphia Inquirer. U.S. families adopted 9,300 foreign-born children last year, down from 23,000 in 2004. But, reporter Tom Avril points out, no matter the country, certain children have always been available to a family that wants them -- those with special needs. Avril profiled a couple that adopted a girl with Down syndrome from Bulgaria, who they named Katie. At age 9, Katie weighed less than 11 pounds and was only 29 inches tall, attributed to a near-starvation diet the orphanage fed disabled children.